Late Spring 2008
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Late Spring 2008
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Columns
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(Not
Your Ordinary Business Profile-Or It Didn’t Work Out! ) By Lowell Pugh, Owner On the first of January our family funeral home’s 104th anniversary slid quietly by without fanfare. My paternal grandmother had two brothers, James and John Phillips, in the hardware business at the turn of the century. They bought the adjacent furniture and undertaking business at the close of 1903 from Udell & Finney. We have only 1903 records from U & F, so we don’t know when they were actually established. There were other funeral activities prior to this time by A. Morton who advertised coffins for sale in 1882 and a Perry Hurlburt had an undertaking business in Golden City before moving to Joplin. But let’s continue our story.
James and John asked, lured or kidnapped a younger
brother Enoch (E.A.) to return from working at a Mercantile in Everton, Missouri
to take over the undertaking business. He
didn’t really know anything about this business either.
E.A. went to Springfield, Missouri and took a three-day course in
embalming from August Lohmeyer, a Springfield undertaker and state board member.
E.A. was granted Missouri embalmer license No. 802.
We still have his illustrated textbook which was a great hit when I
sneaked it out for grade school show-and-tell. The brothers expanded the mezzanine in the furniture
store and moved the hardware business into that building.
Caskets and coffins were kept upstairs, the hearse and matched grey team
of horses in a barn behind the store and embalming was done in the home of the
client. Most finished caskets were bought from Kriegle Casket
Company in St. Louis and Abernathy Furniture and Casket Company in Kansas City.
The funeral home’s first sale was a five-foot, nine inch, black crepe
Kriegle casket for $25, slippers for $1.17 and an $8 hearse charge. (When the hardware store building was sold a few years
ago, we donated: casket hardware and
trim, paper goods, a couple of caskets and a keyhole-formaldehyde-fumigator from
the early days of the funeral home to the funeral service museum in Houston .)
In 1912 James Phillips who was far the better manager of the trio died
and left three small orphaned children. Probably
due to settling James’ estate, the business was split up. In 1919, E.A. took a train to St. Louis and returned
with a Dodge chassis motor hearse. The
matched grey horses were relegated to dray duty.
The Dodge hearse was an instant success even though a country funeral in
muddy weather took all day and several stops to refill the radiator with water
from a ditch. The undertaking was in another store building by 1921
and John had split off to start his own ill-fated grocery and hardware.
Phillips Bros. became E.A. Phillips Hardware, Furniture &
Undertaking. What was probably
supposed to be a family commercial empire—didn’t work out. My father, Harold F. Pugh, started working for uncle Enoch in 1922 at the age of 16. He worked in all aspects of both businesses as clerk, director’s assistant and general lackey. Harold graduated from the Williams Institute of Embalming in Kansas City in 1928. That same year they started an ambulance service with a 1928 Meteor combination funeral coach/ambulance. Ambulance service, an honorable, humanitarian, civic enterprise which should also have been profitable…… didn’t work out.
The present funeral home was purchased in 1931 to be
used as a funeral home and residence by E.A. and his second wife, Mary.
She had been the firm’s bookkeeper for many years and she convinced E.A.
to make the move of the funeral business from Main Street.
Mary died in 1935 and E.A. pretty much lost interest in the operation of
either business and left the day-to-day operations up to my parents, Harold and
Hazel Pugh. E.A. continued to live
in the funeral home and was a daily presence at the retail store until shortly
before his death in 1965. E.A. had no children, but was a compassionate man and provided a lot of assistance to family members, local charity and churches. He never had as much money as people thought, but maintained the appearance of a comfortable lifestyle. He put very little money back into the business preferring to live for himself and not for the business. He often used business operating capital to pursue land, cattle, fox hounds and perhaps an occasional female—which didn’t work out.
Looking through the records of the 1930’s and early 1940’s you will see the accounts receivable littered with entries describing payments by produce, animals and labor for wallpapering to gathering corn or sowing seed. The casket selection dwindled to an assortment of cloth-covered, one hardwood and one 20 gauge half couch. Then came WWII with tire and gas shortages. E.A. had always buried his family in steel vaults. He saved the last one for himself. Consequently, when his brother Zedoc died in 1943 he got only a wooden rough box for an outer receptacle. Sorry Zed. It didn’t work out. Zed probably didn’t mind. There are still a few bottles of his home brew around somewhere.
In 1944 at age 12, I made my first ambulance trip as an
attendant. Due to the patient’s
immediate needs I realized that I must have forgotten to put the urinal back in
the equipment box and had to scrounge an empty tomato can.
The patient was coming home from the hospital and survived for awhile.
With three elderly couples and a maiden aunt we made 27 ambulance calls
for that family in the next 15 years. In
high school I helped with the ambulance calls, first with a ‘36 Miller Packard
which was replaced with a ‘48 Superior Pontiac combination coach/ambulance.
I made first calls, did yard work, helped with some funerals and set up
cemetery equipment. Then I decided
to join the branch of the family that was farming.
It didn’t work out either. I started my apprenticeship in 1951 and graduated from
St. Louis College of Mortuary Science in 1952.
Betty (Frock) and I married shortly thereafter.
Businessmen from a neighboring town asked us to put in a branch funeral
home to replace their store-front funeral business that had closed.
I had already received my draft notice.
That didn’t work out. I was inducted in the U.S. Army in 1953 and was sent to
Ft. Bliss, Texas for AAA training. I
tried to get in the medics. It
didn’t work out. In relation to funeral business, I took my oral exam on
furlough and received my license after shipping out to Germany in 1954.
I applied for Graves Registration. But
it didn’t work out. After returning home in 1955, I started fulltime with the family business and helped Ferry Funeral Home in Nevada, MO on occasion. The Phillips retail store had degraded to the point of it was mostly a loafing place for E.A. and his friends. E.A.’s brother John was there daily, more or less on a pension from E.A., so he wouldn’t be home with “that” wife. John’s principle duty was to push an ancient feather duster around. We tried to not let him answer the phone. A few times he reminded E.A. that he may not have paid John $10 for a glass showcase. My dad said E.A. paid for it several times. I suggested to the family it was time to close the store and we just work on the funeral home. It didn’t work out.
Betty and I started our family in 1956.
Holly, Phillip and Ivy were the end result.
It worked out better than expected. My parents had always attended district MFD&EA
meetings so we joined also. The
chairs rotated up from secretary/treasurer and I was pleased to accept the
bottom slot in anticipation of moving up. They
thought I was so good I should be secretary/treasurer again next year. It
didn’t work out. My father and I partnered in 1963.
We changed the name of the business from Phillips to Phillips-Pugh
Funeral Home assuring E.A. that his name would remain in the family business
forever. We expanded the retail
business and improved the funeral home property.
E.A. died in 1965 and I carried him the 24 feet from his bed to the prep
table. In 1968 I converted a
Chevrolet Sport Van into the first van-style ambulance in the area.
My father, Harold didn’t much like my ambulance truck.
He died at the age of 62 in December that year.
Too many cigarettes. Too much
whiskey. Too common in this
stressful profession. I got tired of answering the phone for Mr. Phillips and
changed the name to Pugh Funeral Home in 1969.
Sorry Uncle, but it just didn’t work out.
That same year I turned the ambulance service over to the city.
My colleagues in the county seat were going to quit too, but backed down
and continued for another year or so. Another
operator in an adjoining county continued until he decided he wasn’t going to
get any of our business. In 1975 I became a licensed MEMT (paramedic), Betty was
an EMT and we helped on the city volunteer ambulance crew.
The city’s new service was the first all-volunteer ambulance in the
state under the new state/federal program. I
went back to the U.S. Army Reserve for eight years running the medical section
of the 3rd. Bn. 75th FA. With a
momentary lapse of sanity I agreed to take my turn as mayor.
The city had a dozen resignations and I fired the police chief.
It didn’t work out. The seventies were good with our three teenage kids to
help with maintenance and service chores. It
didn’t last. We
didn’t raise any undertakers. I
can’t say it didn’t work out though. They
are all successful in their fields-education, computer science and medical.
But two of the grandchildren want our funeral coach when we are done with
it. Since I was pretty busy in 1975 I missed a couple of
district MFDA meetings. At the third
quarter meeting I learned that I was president that year, but no one got around
to telling me until after the meeting. Then
the host for the fourth meeting dropped the ball.
My association career still didn’t work out. My mother, Hazel W. Pugh, died May 31, 1985 after eight
years of severe emphysema. Again too
many cigarettes and secondhand smoke though she claimed the possibility of lung
damage from tanning hides and making fur coats during the depression.
She had done everything there is to do in a funeral home except the
actual embalming and maybe mowing grass. She
made some burial clothes in the depression years and did all cosmetic and hair
care until Betty and I took over. A
beautician friend once asked her how she could continue to take care of her
friends. She told the friend that
she thought of the body as a vacant house. “The
occupant was no longer there.” She
answered the funeral home telephone from her bedside until about two weeks
before her death. Jeanette (Thomas) Salzman practically grew up in our
store. When we closed the store she
moved to the funeral home as bookkeeper and director’s assistant.
Alas, the USPS pays better. On
the rural route she could change a tire from stop to start in five minutes.
Jeanette still helps us out, but her tire changing time is not as good
since she got better tires. In 1991 I took and passed the Texas exam.
One of our kids and their family had moved to Texas.
I thought we might sell out and move there too.
The place didn’t sell and the kids moved to Oklahoma. That didn’t
work out either. Joanne Howard joined Betty and I in the funeral home in 1992. She got her funeral director’s license and with a degree in Psychology she was a great fit to start our aftercare program and the “Grief In the Workplace” study we developed. Joanne is now the funeral home manager/FDIC.
I worked in a small funeral home in a large city while
going to school and a large funeral home in a small city later.
Most of my funeral service career has remained in a tiny funeral home in
a village so take any comments with a healthy dose of provincial skepticism.
Oh, by the way Joanne Howard and I started The Dead Beat –The Caregiver’s Soapbox in
1999—we don’t know yet if it will work out?????? |
ADVERTISERS Brian Simmons Springfield Mortuary Service Miller Coach & Limousine Sales Si Mortuary & Cremation Services Mid-States Professional Services Dallas Institute of Funeral Service American Crematory Equipment Co. Aaron Beasley Embalming Service & Crematory Texas Funeral Directors Association Central Texas Funeral Transport
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